VIENNA - Austria’s coalition government has agreed on a plan to enable police to monitor suspects’ secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country.
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/austrian-government-agrees-on-plan-to-allow-monitoring-of-secure-messaging
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Er, does this compel everyone to cooperate, or is it just a “yeah, police are legally allowed to monitor encrypted communications” kind of thing?
The first seems dystopian and the second performative, and neither seems like it will do what Austria’s government says it will.
They can now compel companies to share all the info they have with a court order, but it doesn’t require breaking encryption as EU chat control wants to do.
Right; so anyone using Apple Messages or WhatsApp or Signal still has private messaging; it’s those message apps that only encrypt in transit that are leaving data exposed to authorities. Personally, I don’t have an issue with that like I do with EU chat control. But it’s mostly performative.
Yeah it’s basically just a legal way for them to introduce it as evidence since intelligence agencies spy on shit either way.